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Posts Tagged ‘naturalness’

That Was the Week That Was (#22)

Posted in Current Events, History, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2012| 34 Comments »

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.  –  Victor Hugo

One new item, eight updates and two metaupdates.

True Colors

New Orleans charity Women With A Vision has been fighting for the rights of poor women, including sex workers, for years; their efforts were instrumental in bringing down Louisiana’s monstrous “Crime Against Nature by Solicitation” law which was used to place whores (especially black or transsexual ones) on the “sex offender” registry.  Apparently some hateful person was angry about this or their other work, because on the night of May 24th he broke into their office and set a fire which destroyed it and virtually everything in it.

There’s no way to know whether the arsonist was motivated by hatred of prostitutes, black people, transsexuals, or some other disadvantaged group for which WWAV fights, but this action demonstrates the true colors of those who would deny rights to others, no matter what rhetoric they use to rationalize their position.  WWAV is desperately in need of help:  New Orleans area readers could donate time, women’s clothing, computer equipment, office supplies, etc (call 504-301-0428 to volunteer), and readers anywhere in the world can donate to WWAV at their site.  My readers have been very generous to me with presents, but for the next few months I ask that you spend that money helping WWAV instead; if you want it to be a present for me, just make the donation in my name.  Any help you can give will mean a great deal to me!

A similar incident occurred in China last week:

An outspoken advocate for sex workers reopened her office…after it was trashed by eight men who punched and threatened her life last week.  Ye Haiyan, 37, is the founder of Chinese Women’s Rights Workshops, an NGO that promotes sex workers’ rights and helps raise awareness of HIV/AIDS…Ye said the men did not look like gang members and she suspects that local authorities might have had a role in the attack…Earlier this year, she was also threatened over the phone and told to shut her office…

Updates

Lying Down With Dogs (November 24th, 2010)

Another example of an African country whose anti-whore rhetoric strongly resembles that of the US, right down to the ludicrous euphemisms:

The Liberian government…disclosed that a campaign named…“Operation Save Our Future” has been launched…[to] minimize prostitution as well as sexual exploitation and abuse against girls…the operation will also tackle indecent dressing…Minister [Julia] Cassell said the prostitutes will be rehabilitated through basic skills including baking, sewing, hair dressing, and pastry…She urged the public to dress appropriately because the “government is now after them.”  She called on those involved into commercial sex working to desist from the illegal act and put their hands to use in a positive direction.

Because working independently for good pay isn’t a “positive direction”, but working in a sweatshop or doing other low-paid work for someone else is; that’s especially loathsome rhetoric in a country founded by freed slaves.  Note also that Liberian “feminists”, like their American sisters, are unable to recognize that the road from criminalization of prostitution to criminalization of “indecent dress” is a very short one.

Neither Cold nor Hot (April 6th, 2011)

Jezebel has attacked evolutionary psychologists like Satoshi Kanazawa (who, incidentally, has a new book out) on a number of occasions, and now they’re fighting back:  Kanazwa’s colleague Barry Kuhle sharply criticizes the site for embracing the neofeminist “social construction of gender” dogma in his article “Giving Feminism a Bad Name”.  He examines the logical fallacies used by “gender feminists” (Christina Sommers’ term for neofeminists) to attack scientific findings, and blames them for the word “feminist” having become an insult.  Kuhle’s an interesting writer; I also enjoyed his recent column on why the ever-increasing alphabet soup used to describe sexual minorities (now LGBTQIH and still growing) is ridiculous and should be replaced by a more manageable acronym.

Welcome To Our World Again (January 20th, 2012)

Too bad Zimbabwe isn’t the only country so Bizarro that it’s willing to cut off its nose to spite its face on the issue of sex laws which cause higher rates of HIV:

President Robert Mugabe yesterday clashed with visiting UN human rights chief Navi Pillay after she appeared to suggest that legalising prostitution and homosexuality could go a long way in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS…Mugabe…swore that this would happen OVER HIS DEAD BODY…police in Harare have intensified a blitz on prostitutes and women found in pubs claiming they are trying to stop crime which is being promoted by prostitution…Mugabe…has previously described homosexuality as “worse than dogs and pigs”…MP Tabitha Khumalo…[said] “[Prostitution] is here to stay and we need to bite the bullet.  PLEASURE ENGINEERING…did not begin in…Zimbabwe.  It all began in the Garden of Eden and one of those PLEASURE ENGINEERS was Eve”…

In a sense, bigots like Mugabe are more consistent and less hypocritical than certain Americans who are very vocal in demanding their own sexual rights, yet support persecution of whores.  Also, I think I’m going to write MP Khumalo a fan letter.

The Rape Question (April 4th, 2012)

This article about “brothel” raids in Ireland (actually, most were private flats in which women worked together for safety) is full of the usual agency denial and “sex trafficking” mythology, but I was especially struck by one passage:  “Mary Crilly, Director of the Sexual Violence Centre (SVC) in Cork [said], ‘I welcome the raids.  We need to end the demand for prostitution, as long as there are men who are paying for sex there will be a demand.  Prostitution isn’t about sex, it’s about money and exploitation’.”  This is of course the old “rape is asexual” dogma, but it does demonstrate how completely out of touch with reality these women are.

Feet of Clay (April 5th, 2012)

The death-spiral of Nicholas Kristof’s reputation continues:

The Brooklyn prosecutor who had a starring role in…Nicholas Kristof’s expose of Backpage…has resigned amid charges she sat on evidence that would have saved a sex-crimes suspect from spending 11 months in jail.  The New York Daily News reported this week that  prosecutor Lauren Hersh quit after two black men charged with serially raping an Orthodox Jewish girl since she was 13 were released because the alleged victim had recanted her claims the day after she made them.  Hersh…failed to share [the recantation] with the grand jury or defense lawyers…Hersh was also cited in Kristof’s story about Backpage back in January, “How Pimps Use the Web to Sell Girls”…Kristof cited a case prosecuted by Hersh involving an underage prostitute, without disclosing the fact that Hersh only was able to track down the perpetrators because Backpage turned over identifying information…

Unfortunately, Fisher is a mealy-mouthed moralist who denies women’s right to sex on our own terms; he seems more concerned with the fact that Backpage is singled out than the fact that whores are persecuted.  But that makes his attacks on Kristof (his natural ally in moralism) all the more indicative of the latter’s fall from grace.

This poster for my favorite perfume was the most complained-about advert in the UK since 1995.

Little Boxes
(April 29th, 2012)

As I’ve pointed out many times, it is impossible to draw clear lines between female sexual behaviors, and sugar babies are part of a continuum stretching from wives to professional harlots.  But while I usually demonstrate the strong resemblance between sugar babies and hookers, Helen Croydon makes the equally valid point that they are a lot like traditional “low maintenance” lovers, and defends such arrangements as sensible and rewarding:

…These models of relationships are an honest way of withholding commitment…That may not be appealing to everyone.  It certainly isn’t the route to finding a soul mate.  But not everyone wants one of those at every stage in their life.  Is it so wrong to underpin the foundations of a relationship with something other than 100% devotion and exclusivity?…payment…doesn’t necessarily have to exclude affection…“compensated relationships” are far more honorable and rewarding than meaningless, vulgar, no-strings sex encounters.  Yet we give more respect to the latter.  These days relationships can only be rubber stamped if they are all encompassing, full-time, cohabiting and long-term…

Whorearchy (May 10th, 2012)

Until the mid-19th century prostitutes and actresses were members of a single profession, and we still haven’t diverged much.  But one wouldn’t know that from listening to actresses – including those who have played sex workers – insisting that they’re better than we are:

Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is demanding an apology from a Hong Kong newspaper after it published claims she had sex with disgraced Communist party official Bo Xilai for huge sums of money…the star of ” Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “Memoirs of a Geisha” [allegedly] slept with Bo at least ten times between 2007 and 2011…[and] negotiated similar deals with several other powerful men…she [supposedly] earned around $110 million from prostituting herself…

Traffic Jam (May 20th, 2012)

Reason posted a video of 20/20‘s 1985 report “The Devil Worshippers”:

…It may help, as you watch this, to know that the bodies of the alleged sacrifice victims never materialized, that the statistic of two million missing kids was a wild exaggeration, and that Mike Warnke, presented here as an expert on Satanic rites, was later exposed as a fraud.  But really, anyone able to think critically should be able to see through this without the benefit of hindsight.  What’s interesting is that so many people took it seriously at the time…Even if you ignore the actual misinformation in the program, this is as pure an example as you’ll find of how a scattered group of unconnected crimes can be presented as a grand, malevolent movement, particularly when they’re combined with anxieties about the influence of popular culture…

Here are the links for Part Two and Part Three.

Metaupdates

What a Week! in October Updates (Part One) (October 2nd, 2011)

Another advantage to decriminalization:  access to the legal system.

A plan to build Australia’s largest brothel is poised to overcome local government opposition in a victory for Sydney’s sex industry over creeping regulation.  The $12 million, three-storey extension to the Stiletto brothel…can be approved once client numbers are capped…Even after being decriminalised in 1995, NSW brothel owners are increasingly turning to courts to reverse rejections by councils opposed to the industry…”Research usually shows brothels are not a problem in a community,” said Wayne Morgan, a lecturer specialising in sexuality-related law at the Australian National University.  “Staff are usually very discreet, and clients, by their very nature, are very discreet.  This was partly the point of legalising brothels in the first place – to take out the criminal aspect”…

Counterfeit Comfort in TW3 (#8) (February 26th, 2012)

Louisiana’s recent attempt to further destroy the lives of people who urinated in public or had consensual sex with their high-school girlfriends is not the only one to be defeated lately; those condemned to the American pariah caste are fighting back:

Registered sex offenders who have been banned from social networking websites are…successfully challenging many of the restrictions as infringements on free speech…Courts have long allowed states to place restrictions on convicted sex offenders who have completed their sentences…but the increasing use of social networks for everyday communication raises new, untested issues…Ruthann Robson, a professor of constitutional law at the City University of New York, said the bans could eventually be taken up by the Supreme Court…”If we think that the government can curtail sex offenders’ rights without any connection to the actual crime, then it could become a blanket prohibition against anyone who is accused of a crime, no matter what the crime is”…

One Year Ago Today

“June Updates (Part Two)” reports on San Diego’s excuses for rapist cops, Mira Sorvino’s declaring Sacramento the “leading destination for sex traffickers”, and yet another guy playing BDSM games with strangers without a signed contract.

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Naked Truth

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2012| 14 Comments »

There is only one art, whose sole criterion is the power, the authenticity, the revelatory insight, the courage and suggestiveness with which it seeks its truth.  –  Václav Havel

One year ago today I published “New Reviews for May”, in which I reviewed two movies (The Pyx and Soylent Green) and a book (Harvey Silverglate’s Three Felonies a Day).  I’ll probably do another review column next month, but today I’d like to look at a combination film review and director interview by someone else, and to share my thoughts on it.  The film is Whores’ Glory by Austrian director Michael Glawogger; the reviewer/interviewer is Tracy Quan, retired call girl and author of  Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, Diary of a Married Call Girl and Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl; and the publication is The Daily Beast.

Whores’ Glory, a ground-breaking and surprisingly accurate documentary about sex workers in three countries…opened [April 27th] in New York and Seattle, after provoking considerable buzz at the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals in September…The…film is a riveting journey into three different enclaves in three religious “time zones”—a Bangkok “fish tank” brothel in Buddhist Thailand, a prostitution compound in mainly Muslim Bangladesh, and finally, Reynosa, a Mexican border town where Lady Death (not exactly a Vatican-approved saint) seems to be as popular as the Virgin Mary.  La Santa Muerte, as she’s known, is undeniably spooky, and yet Reynosa is refreshing …Whores’ Glory is graceful in its approach to hardship and completely free of judgment about indentured sex work in Bangladesh and crack use in Reynosa.  This attitude also extends to religious belief …Whores’ Glory treats religion as something akin to housekeeping.  Girls pray for a good night of business in Bangkok; a Faridpur sex worker purifies the doorway of her room with a paper torch…

It’s also refreshing to see the words “surprisingly accurate documentary” and “sex workers” in the same sentence, but even in the midst of a moral panic Europeans do tend to be much more sensible about such things than Americans are.  I really want to see this film, but I’m guessing it’ll be a while before it’s available on DVD; in the meantime I’ll just have to take vicarious pleasure in the fact that the truth about sex work is playing for a while on big screens in several major hotbeds of “sex trafficking” hysteria.

Quan discusses all three segments, but it’s the Bangladeshi one I find most interesting; apparently she did, too, because she spends the most time on it:

Faridpur’s City of Joy is a typical Bangladeshi brothel compound managed by a clique of competitive mothers—older prostitutes evolved into madams…With more than 600 women living and working in the City of Joy, there aren’t enough customers at any given time.  Many of the brothel’s citizens began working shortly after their first menstruation and would like a different outcome for their daughters.  The world outside is hostile to those aspirations and often dangerous, while the brothel itself provides a lifelong safety net…“It’s a female-controlled ghetto,” Glawogger said, “a very closed community, with six or so mothers who have a very strong grip on the whole thing.  If a guy is rude to a girl, he never walks on those premises again.”  The few resident males are either biological sons or “baboos” (lovers) of the successful madams.  A mother, Glawogger said, has perhaps five girls working for her who may be biological daughters or indentured sex workers…How did Glawogger gain access to such a closed matriarchal world?  Here, as in Bangkok and Reynosa, participants were paid for their time because, he said, every hour of filming was an hour when they weren’t earning income.  But that’s not the whole story.  In 2006, Glawogger was visiting Tangail, 45 miles from Faridpur.  The women in Tangail’s brothel section had been warned that a mob of religious fundamentalists was planning to purge the brothel quarter…“All the clients and male relatives ran away,” he said, “but the women stayed and they were ready to fight back.”  Glawogger’s photographs of women and girls in their saris, some in full makeup, preparing to defend themselves with clubs, sticks, and sickle-shaped kitchen knives appeared in the local media.  “Word got around that we were defending the mothers in the press and this spread to other brothels in other towns.”  The women of Tangail, who inspired the making of Whores’ Glory, are its unseen heart, and are the reason Bangladesh is central to this film’s journey.  Conventional feminism can’t make sense of this fact:  the most courageous opposition to fundamentalism in this country comes from Muslim women who are sex workers.

Conventional feminism can’t make sense of anything to do with sex work, because all its dogma proceeds from the faulty assumption that prostitution can somehow be teased apart from other heterosexual behaviors…which as I repeatedly point out, it can’t.  This is especially clear in La Zona, the red-light district of Reynosa, about half of whose streetwalkers have pimps to whom they surrender most of their money…yet can walk away from any time they like.  Just as in exploitative non-commercial relationships, the binding force is not usually violence or captivity, but rather an unhealthy, dependent form of romantic love.  As long as prohibitionists insist on pretending that harlots are somehow different from other women, they’ll never understand; that’s why we need more people like Glawogger, who can help us to demonstrate the truth to the silent majority who can actually learn from it.

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Why is Sex Such a Taboo?

Posted in History, Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 28, 2012| 71 Comments »

Both magic and religion are based strictly on mythological tradition, and they also both exist in the atmosphere of the miraculous, in a constant revelation of their wonder-working power.  They both are surrounded by taboos and observances which mark off their acts from those of the profane world.  –  Bronislaw Malinowski

One year ago today I published “February Q & A”, in which I answer the questions, “Do you know an escort who works in my city?”, “Would you please give us a few pointers on how to perform oral sex on a man?” and “Why do so many more escorts kiss nowadays?”  But every so often I get a single (complex) question whose answer is enough for a whole column; this is one of them.

Why is sex such a taboo in human culture and civilization?  I am in my 20s and I find that the cultural conditioning is not allowing the natural sex urge to express itself naturally.  Which social, economic and political factors are responsible for such a situation?  The expression of sex urge has become more artificial in modern society.  How much role does pornography play in making sex experience artificial?  Do you think marriage is necessary in our modern society?

I suspect the sexual taboo derives from two different but related factors.  First, consider birth; once our ancestors recognized the link between sex and babies they (understandably) developed a sense of awe about it.  To them, it was magic (which in the end really just means “anything we don’t understand”), so they devised rules and ceremonies around it (such as marriage and sacred prostitution).  And once religion and law get into the act, everything becomes more complicated and artificial.  The development of the concepts of private property and the ability to organize society on a larger level than the tribe allowed the growth of cities and nations and the appearance of social classes, and heredity became important; since it was the responsibility of each family to care for its old, children became vital not merely as heirs but as caregivers in old age.  Thus taboos developed around the generative organs, from which descendants sprang; if an enemy or evil spirit wished to harm one, causing his genitals to malfunction via magic could be an effective way.  The ancients believed that words (especially names) had magical power, so people became reluctant to speak aloud of the genitals or sex acts, and it became more important to hide the organs and behaviors from sight and to describe them with euphemisms.  In women, the mammae were sometimes hidden as well since they produce milk without which babies die.

Once such trends start, they continue by themselves even after people have forgotten the reasons they began in the first place.  The modern welfare/police states have managed to turn children into a liability rather than an asset and birth control has made it possible to avoid them, yet we still pretend that every sex act is a magical ritual which may produce the most valuable of resources.  We no longer believe that words have magical power, so we instead ascribe pseudoscientific explanations to the imagined “harm” they can cause and continue to legislate against them.  And we cloak taboos against nudity with meaningless words like “decency” and pretend that for a woman to undress in front of strange men will somehow cause harm to society as a whole.

The increasingly-artificial expression of sex has nothing to do with porn (which has existed since man discovered art and language) and everything to do with burgeoning legal penalties for those who express sexual urges in anything resembling a natural fashion.  Religious fundamentalists use the old excuses, neofeminists use new ones equally unfounded in reality, and governments seize upon any excuse whatsoever to harass, impoverish and imprison citizens.  We’ve added new crimes to the old, and devised ever-more-fiendish punishments like “sex offender registration” for those who sin against the Holy Ritual of Sex; we’ve added an entirely new field of civil law in which individual women (no matter how warped or unrepresentative their views) are the sole arbiters of acceptable male sexual behavior; and in many cases we have elevated these previously-unprecedented civil torts into criminal law.  People (especially men) are therefore increasingly wary of stepping into any of the arbitrary, subjective and often-invisible snares governments have designed to entrap them, and now have to consider any interaction with others (even their own children) as a soldier considers crossing a minefield; any misstep could result in swift and total disaster.  Is it any wonder modern sex is artificial?

Finally, marriage.  Though I’m a strong believer in traditional marriage, I think it’s like the riding of horses:  a novel curiosity accessible only to the very few.  And for nations to expend the time, money and effort they do on its continuance is equivalent to mandating horse lanes on motorways.  It is an anachronism, and needs to be abolished; simply put, government needs to get out of the marriage game entirely except in its role as the adjudicator of private contracts.  All marriages should be contracts written and freely entered by citizens of legal age, the number, sex and conditions of which are determined by nobody other than the participants.  The function of the registrar would merely be to inspect the contract to ensure it contained all the necessary provisions (such as child custody and alimony/support) and no illegal ones.  If such a contract were broken, the injured party could sue in civil court just as he could if any other contract were breached.  There would be no such thing as “family law” or “divorce court”, which would remove the unfairness inherent in the current system and make it difficult for either party to use his or her natural advantages (money, sex or children) as a crowbar with which to leverage a lopsided deal into which no sane person would enter without compulsion.

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The Sky is Falling!

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 20, 2012| 18 Comments »

“Oh, Foxy Loxy, the sky is falling!” said Turkey Lurkey.  “How do you know?” said Foxy Loxy.  “Goosey Loosey told me,” he replied.  “And Goosey Loosey, how do you know?” “Ducky Lucky told me”.  “Ducky Lucky, how do you know?”  “Henny Penny told me.”  “Henny Penny, how do you know?”  “Chicken Licken told me.”  “And Chicken Licken, how do you know?” “Part of it fell on my head!”  “Make haste, then,” said Foxy Loxy, “and all come into my den!”  –  English folktale

Chicken Licken and company meet Foxy LoxyI’m sure everyone remembers the story of Chicken Licken (or Chicken Little, as she is called in America); some natural object (usually an acorn) falls on her head and she runs about shouting, “The sky is falling!” The other barnyard fowl then join the panic until a clever fox offers them shelter in his den, where he quickly devours the foolish birds.  The tale appears in many forms from all over the globe, including a 2500-year-old Tibetan version in which the animal who starts the panic is a hare, the frightening event a ripe fruit falling with a loud “plop” into a pond, and the predator a tiger.  Weaker modern versions in which the silly animals escape disaster subvert the moral of the tale, which could be stated as “Those who panic due to perfectly natural events or hearsay will be taken advantage of by the clever but unscrupulous.”  The “trafficking hysteria” is obviously an example of this, with ridiculous geese running about squawking “The sky is falling!” merely because someone else told them it was.

In real life, panics are usually a little more complicated; they are set off by a combination of events rather than one, and unfortunately do not generally end with the rapid devouring of the idiots who started the hysteria.  But the phenomena which trigger them are still nearly always perfectly natural ones; in the case of “trafficking” hysteria, for example, the triggers are women trading sex for money, people ignoring arbitrary laws which wrongfully restrain them from what they need to do, people crossing borders to work, and xenophobia.  The first two also combine with another natural event, young people doing things of which their elders disapprove, to produce a different but related moral panic we’ve discussed several times recently:  university students having compensated sex to pay their bills.  As Dominique Jackson pointed out, this isn’t remotely new; older men have always sought younger women since time immemorial (even when, as in my column of one year ago today, they get in trouble for it), and young women have always been willing to capitalize on it (as well they should).

But the fact that these things are as natural as the fall of a nut doesn’t stop media Chicken Lickens and Turkey Lurkeys from getting into a panic over them, as demonstrated by these two recent items which appeared on EconJeff’s blog.  The first one appeared in Click On Detroit January 17th and Jeff commented on it the following day; since I have nothing to add to his insightful comments I’ll just embed an excerpt from the news story in boldface before quoting him:

A pornographic website features college co-eds having sex in dorms, and recent videos…feature students from the University of Michigan.  The DareDorm.com producers have posted advertisements on websites to recruit new students for new movies.  Anthony Kalil, a student at U of M, has heard about the campus porn invasion.  He knows students are being offered up to $10,000 to do the videos.  But he also knows the ramifications of shooting an X-rated movie.  “For somebody to let a crew in to film something like that, you’re ruining yourself and you’re ruining your friends.  It’s just not a good idea,” Kalil said.  “It’s definitely a decision that you are going to have to deal with for the rest of your life.  Twenty years down the road and you have kids, they go on the Internet, they are going to see mommy and daddy when they were drunk in college”…

Can you imagine?  Students having sex in the dorms?  Video cameras?  The internet?  Money?  What is the world coming to?  Surely the end times are near! …Note the use of students (presumably carefully selected for their negative views) to provide the illusion that Channel 4 is engaged in reporting rather than running an anti-sex editorial.  Could they really not find a single student with something positive to say about getting lots of money for doing very little work? …Suppose that you can get $10K for a video.  At typical local wages for undergrads, that means putting in, say, two or three hours of time rather than 1000.  Those 1000 hours could be spent, say, studying.  They might allow an aspiring student to take harder classes or complete a harder major than he or she otherwise would.  Is that necessarily a bad tradeoff? …In the age of Facebook and surveillance cameras does anyone really think that one video on Dare Dorm is going to ruin someone’s life, as suggested by the undergraduates interviewed for the story?  How exactly will someone’s children find their parents’ Dare Dorm video from among the zillions of porn videos on the internet? …Note to Channel 4:  there are lots of important things to report on in the Detroit metro area.  This is not one of them.

I must point out that Jeff is a professor of economics, not a sex worker rights advocate, yet I couldn’t say this any better.  The very next day, he posted a commentary on a local news item about “the medium-term paid relationship services market, informally known as the sugar babies market…[which] lies somewhere between paid escorts who charge by the hour or day and particularly mercenary marriages…[note] the obligatory scary remarks from local law enforcement (playing double duty here as moral scolds)…”  The story appeared on January 18th in MLive:

Students at Jackson-area colleges and universities are among the “College Sugar Babies” signed up on a worldwide dating-for-dollars website.  SeekingArrangement.com, which touts itself as the country’s leading…[compensated] dating website…recently released its top 20 list of colleges and universities with the largest number of sugar baby signups in 2011.  [Local institutions]…did not make that list, but they did have…[a total of 33] students…who registered as “sugar babies” last year…SeekingArrangement.com advertises “mutually beneficial relationships” and has garnered national [media] attention…One in every two “sugar babies” who join the website today are college students, and college “sugar babies” now make up 40 percent of the site’s population, [a recent press] release said.  The numbers and universities are identified by students who register on the site using their “.edu” email address.  They automatically receive a free premium membership upgrade and are classified as “College Sugar Babies,” which receive three times more inquires from potential “Sugar Daddies”…

The website does not promote a direct exchange for sex, so using it does not directly violate the law, said Jackson County Sheriff Steve Rand.  However, he said the website is potentially dangerous.  “The Internet is the wild, wild west and there ain’t no sheriff,” Rand said.  “It’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt on a site like this.  It’s a recipe for disaster”…

Legal adults using their time and assets sensibly without busybody interference from self-appointed “sheriffs”?  The horror!  Sheriff Rand says it’s only “a matter of time” before “disaster” strikes; considering that this sort of thing has been going on for at least 12,000 years, I presume he imagines we’re overdue for “somebody to get hurt” and that the sky will be falling any minute now.

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Not for Everybody

Posted in Perception, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2012| 22 Comments »

A dream to some; a nightmare to others. – Merlin (Nicol Williamson) in Excalibur

One of the central goals of this blog is to help people realize that prostitution is completely natural female behavior; it actually predates marriage in human development and similar behaviors appear even in non-primate species.  Most women will not hesitate to use their “erotic capital” (as Catherine Hakim calls it) to get ahead, and many have no qualms about openly using sex for material gain.  About 10% of all women have directly taken money for sex at least once, and about 1% have actually worked as prostitutes at some time in their lives.  As George Bataille put it, “Not every woman is a prostitute, but prostitution is the natural apotheosis of the feminine attitude”; in other words, full-time professional prostitution occupies one end of a whole spectrum of female behaviors on which it is impossible to draw a line separating the whore from the non-whore.

Obviously, only about 5% of all women (the historical percentage of the female population involved in the trade at any given time) feel comfortable enough with formal, professional prostitution to be able to actually make a living at it; in my column of one year ago today I discussed Amanda Brooks’ theory that such women, who often feel drawn to the profession from an early age as I did, might actually be genetically predisposed to it.  In other words, there might be a “hooker gene”, and harlotry might be a sexual orientation just as homosexuality is.  The comparison is an apt one: just as some men find ecstasy in homosexual activity while others are utterly repulsed by it, so for some women whoring is a dream job while others find it a total nightmare.

Those who consider homosexuality “unnatural” might be inclined to use the comparison to argue that prostitution is equally unnatural (despite this view flying in the face of facts); for those who are so tempted, let me point out that motherhood is as natural a role for women as one could ever imagine, yet I doubt any sane person would disagree that there are some women who are totally unfit for it.  No life-path or career is suitable for everyone, and as long as those who are unsuited to a given role avoid it there is no issue.  But when a woman who is repulsed by motherhood becomes pregnant, or one who has difficulties dealing with people is forced into a job in which public contact is unavoidable, nobody should be surprised when serious problems ensue.  And if a woman who dislikes men or has sexual hang-ups (or both) is forced by circumstance into prostitution, the result can be an unmitigated disaster.

I’m not talking about women who simply aren’t cut out for whoredom; there are lots of those, which is why 10x as many women have tried hooking as have actually stuck with it for a time.  The majority of women who directly take money for sex once or a few times simply decide it’s not for them (for whatever reason) and find some other way to make a living.  But there are a small number who should never have even tried it in the first place, yet are driven by necessity, desperation or actual coercion to practice it for weeks, months or even years; such women are among the worst enemies our profession ever had.  Because they hate the work, they tend to see and remember only the negative aspects.  And because many of them are emotionally damaged even before entering prostitution (due to whatever trauma caused them to hate men and/or sex), and virtually all of them became even more damaged by having to endure what for them was a loathsome existence, they either become fanatics on their own or are easily driven to fanaticism by the prohibitionists.  These are the women who call themselves “survivors” and learn to “reframe their experiences”  (i.e. lie to make their stories more lurid and to more closely conform to anti-whore rhetoric).  They are the mainstays of “john schools” and provide ammunition to prohibitionists who represent their highly-embroidered claims as typical of sex work and even multiply the accounts by changing small details so as to make them sound like different-but-similar tales rather than one repeated ad nauseum.  The very worst of them (as typified by Somaly Mam) are so obsessed with their own darkness that they are willing to utterly destroy the lives of any real human beings who get in the way of their quixotic crusades against private behavior that is literally impossible to eradicate as long as humans remain human.

In a world where individuals were allowed control over their own bodies and the decisions of adults (however strange those choices might seem to others) were always respected by the “authorities”, fanatics who were harmed through ill-fortune or harmed themselves through their own poor choices would have no power over other, less damaged individuals.  But unfortunately we do not yet live in such a world; even in jurisdictions which have legalized prostitution to one degree or another, governments believe they have the authority to abrogate the rights of individuals for whatever excuse strikes their collective fancy (provided they can convince the masses to lie still for it).  As we saw in Rhode Island two years ago, a small group of vocal fanatics can easily convince the “authorities” to strip away rights held without challenge for decades, and  one of the chief weapons of such fanatics is the emotionally-damaged “reluctant whore” who refuses to accept that her feelings or experiences are anything other than typical.

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A Whore in Church

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 10, 2012| 36 Comments »

What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre?  Are they two and not one?  Can they exist separate?  Are not religion and politics the same thing?  –  William Blake, Jerusalem (plate 57)

Ever heard the expression “as nervous as a whore in church” (alternately “sweating like a whore in church”)?  It is, of course, based on the bizarre but popular notion that sex (especially commercial sex) is somehow incompatible with religion, and that a hooker would therefore be nervous at a religious service.  As with so many popular myths about prostitution, nothing could be farther from the truth; whores are morally indistinguishable from women in general, run the gamut from devout to atheistic, and have the same sorts of beliefs (or lack thereof) as other women.  As we’ve discussed many times the earliest professional prostitutes were priestesses who worked in conjunction with temples, and despite the efforts of neofeminists to convince the world that they never existed and those of control freaks to persecute their modern successors for “crimes” against Christian sexual orthodoxy, they demonstrate that not everyone considers sex and religion to be incompatible.  Nor are all religiously-minded harlots pagan; though many are, and many others practice syncretisms of Christianity and paganism, the majority practice whatever religion they were raised in just as so many others do.

Erroneous prejudices like this one can only survive in a climate of ignorance; exposed to the light of truth they tend to wither away.  I know for a fact that many prostitutes are religious because as a whore myself I’ve had the opportunity to talk to and observe the behavior of dozens of my sisters.  I have been asked to pray for them or their families on many occasions, and my operator Gilda (whose story I told one year ago today) did not feel her job as an escort service dispatcher in any way made her less of a Catholic.  Even non-sex workers who take the time to talk to us often have their eyes opened; in a Christmas Eve essay on Huffington Post Rabbi Will Berkovitz told the story of an Italian priest who tried to avoid a group of streetwalkers who worked near his seminary:

The priest confessed he never spoke with the women, studiously avoided eye contact and did his best to never acknowledge their existence.  But as is often the case, willed blindness only works for so long when proximity is coupled with repetition.  And one day, while following his usual protocol of denial, the older prostitute dropped something as he was walking past.  It bounced to a stop at his foot.  Without thinking, the priest’s instinct toward kindness compelled him to pick up the thin wooden object, forcing the encounter he had so dutifully avoided for the past several months.  “It was a knitting needle,” he said, still sounding surprised.  “And out of curiosity, I asked her what she was making.”  The woman responded, “I’m knitting a tapestry for the altar at my church.  It is a gift for God.”

Tears welled up in the priest’s eyes as he recalled her response.  “In my desire to avoid her, I had never noticed the cloth in her hands.  I never bothered to look.  Never thought to ask her story.  And here this woman was knitting a gift for God.”  From that chance encounter he said, he began to learn her history.  Her background.  Her story.  And yet the priest was reluctant to share his experience with his community despite its almost biblical power and impact.

Like the priest (before Fate took a hand), those who willfully avoid thinking of sex workers as “real people” by avoiding any actual interaction with us shield their minds from the truth and can therefore believe whatever ugly nonsense they choose to invent about our immorality, selfishness, unfitness to give charity, danger to “innocent children” or other forms of moral turpitude.

Whores aren’t the only targets of Judeo-Christian prudery, though; in fact, those who embrace such beliefs usually do more damage to themselves than to anyone else by burdening themselves with sexual guilt and convincing themselves that normal sexual impulses constitute an “addiction”.  But though there are plenty of opportunists ready to capitalize on this sick view of human sexuality, there are others who make their living in exactly the opposite way:  selling sex toys to (heterosexual, married) religious couples by packaging and advertising the products without the graphic pictures and tasteless text relied on by secular distributors, and pointing out that satisfying sexual relations strengthen marriages.  And if entrepreneurs can sell dildos and whips to Christians, maybe there’s hope that they may one day return to the practical view of prostitution which characterized the medieval Church.

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The More the Better

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2012| 29 Comments »

Familiarity is the test of truth.  –  Mason Cooley

Most of you have probably seen the recent articles bemoaning the fact that the recession has induced a number of women who had never previously done sex work to take such jobs (especially the legal varieties like phone sex operator, stripper or sugar baby).  And as you’ve read here, it’s the same story among escorts.  As Whitney Jefferson of Jezebel pointed out, mainstream articles on the subject tend to be characterized by anti-whore judgmentalism and the pretense of horror, which Jefferson characterizes as an “I can’t believe this is actually happening …in America” tone.  And of course one of the Jezebel commenters, demonstrating an almost total recto-cranial insertion, posted a comment which illustrated that attitude better than the author could have:

It seems like men never have to resort to this kind of stuff.  People seem less squeamish about taking a job at McDonalds than they do about sex work, for obvious reasons.  Some women aren’t comfortable with sex work but feel like it’s either that or starve…I think that it’s problematic that society is able to shrug and say, “eh, at least she can be a stripper or a phone sex operator” despite the fact that lots of women do not want those roles.  Then we can all collectively wash our hands of the responsibility of providing better jobs.

Because in the neofeminist mind, no job could possibly be worse than one with good pay and flexible hours, and to the Neomarxist mind governments are somehow magically able to provide such jobs regardless of market factors…something even Marx himself recognized was impossible: (“A thing cannot have value, if it is not a useful article.  If it is not useful, then the labor it contains is also useless, does not count as labor and hence does not create value.”)  Though Marx might have disagreed, sex work is valuable for the simple reason that real human beings unmotivated by a political agenda are willing to pay their own money for it, which is a far different thing from make-work jobs paid for with stolen money.

But even though I’m opposed to women who aren’t suited to sex work participating in it (for reasons I discuss in my upcoming January 17th column), I don’t think there are really all that many of them.  Because of the noise created by prohibitionists and prudes (like the commenter quoted above), and the outsized footprints left by embittered malcontents who should never have entered the sex trade in the first place, it sometimes seems to the casual observer that there are plenty of unhappy sex workers.  But studies show this simply isn’t the case; though streetwalkers often report being dissatisfied with their jobs (a fact wrongfully extended by lying prohibitionists to the more than 85% of prostitutes who are not streetwalkers, and thence to strippers, porn actresses and even PSOs), most brothel workers are satisfied with theirs and most escorts see theirs positively.  An Australian study even found that half of all prostitutes surveyed ranked their work as a “major source of satisfaction” in their lives, and 70% said they would definitely choose prostitution again if they had their lives to live over.

In other words, despite the claims of yellow journalists and neofeminists the great majority of the inexperienced women entering sex work due to economic pressure find that work no more odious than that of other women forced by economic pressure into other jobs that might not have been their first choice.  As I pointed out in “A False Dichotomy”,

The only people who can truly claim to have made an absolutely free choice to do any kind of work are the Paris Hiltons of the world, those who have a guaranteed inheritance, income and secured future no matter what they choose to do with the present.  Every other person has no choice but to work in some fashion; the choice not to work at all simply doesn’t exist unless one considers starvation an option.  At that point, then, the choice boils down to what kind of work one is able and willing to do.

And that being the case, I think it’s fantastic news that more women are choosing to do sex work.  A great deal of prohibitionism is fueled by the myth that all whores are monsters, criminals, defectives or victims rather than what we actually are:  women using our natural abilities to make a living, just as men use their natural abilities to do so without anyone as much as batting an eyelash.  The more women try sex work, the more people will know a woman who has done it and the more the stigma will evaporate; the less the stigma, the less the support for criminalization.  As it has happened with homosexuality, so it will with sex work; once the majority of women know someone who has done sex work, the majority of men who have employed sex workers will more easily be able to admit it and the more people will recognize prohibitionist propaganda for what it is.

Not so very long ago, gambling was portrayed as a monumental social evil, but Nevada made it easy for many Americans to experience it and by the 1980s Las Vegas had even succeeded in dispelling much of the seedy atmosphere that had frightened more timid souls away.  Indian casinos, riverboat casinos and state lotteries proliferated throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s and the internet brought online gambling, the persecution of which by the federal government is predestined to fail for reasons which should be obvious.  And now it looks like the “gentrification” of Nevada brothels may be starting with the appearance of themed brothels (thanks to Krulac and Dean Clark for sending me that item), which have been popular in Japan for years.

Repression thrives on ignorance; when people see others as human beings they are less likely to support the persecution of those people, and when they see behaviors as normal rather than strange and “scary” they are less likely to support bans on those activities.  The more women try sex work the more people will know someone who has and the less prohibitionists will be able to present lies and exceptions as the norm.  In the present climate of ignorance, women who have bad experiences with sex work are seen as far more representative than they actually are, but with knowledge comes perspective and the recognition that sex work is like any other kind of work:  awful for a few, tolerable for many and perfect for some.

One Year Ago Today

“Grow the Hell Up” examines the support for prohibition which derives from ignorance acting in conjunction with a desire to avoid personal responsibility.

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First Updates of the Year (Part Two)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 4, 2012| 29 Comments »

It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the evil to suspect good.  –  Marcus Tullius Cicero

Four more articles which relate to earlier columns.  Male readers who are sensitive should probably skip the third item; you have been warned!

Gorged With Meaning (November 21st, 2011)

In this column I discussed silly British people who, by trying to impress a rigid and incorrect definition of “prostitute” on reality, get all upset upon discovering that young, attractive women are whoring themselves to older, wealthier men as they have since the dawn of civilization.  In this December 14th column from the Daily Mail, Dominique Jackson makes essentially the same point:

…The rise in tuition fees, soaring living costs and government cuts to maintenance grants are all reportedly forcing more and more young women to turn to prostitution and other forms of sex work…I am afraid I have to disappoint but these headlines, with their sly mix of prurience and moral outrage, are not in the least bit new.  The vast majority of students, those who cannot rely on the Bank of Mum and Dad, have always had to come up with ingenious ways of making ends meet.  Intelligent girls…have never been averse to using their patent attractions to part gullible men from their money.  It is, of course, the oldest profession in the world…

Doctor Ron Roberts from Kingston University said their own recent studies showed that the number of students who knew someone who has worked in the sex industry to fund their studies had gone up from three per cent to 25 per cent.  He also said 11 per cent would consider escort work and called the statistics:  ‘worrying’.  Eleven per cent?  Is that all?  I am pretty sure that working as an escort…has crossed plenty more bright young female minds.  Escort work would seem to be the most palatable end of a spectrum which presumably includes pole or lap dancing, stripping and goes through to full-blown intercourse in exchange for money…There was a strictly enforced ban against taking on jobs during term time when I was a university student in the 1980s.  Nevertheless, many of my bolder friends chose to defy the authorities, usually by working a few shifts as a waitress in Brown’s Restaurant, where the only qualification needed was to look good in an absurdly short mini-skirt.  Back then, I wasn’t aware of any of my own peers capitalising on their assets in any more direct way.  However, scores of cannier girls made sure they bagged a boyfriend who they knew could well afford to take them out for nice dinners and, ideally, had a car to boot.  As most women realise, it is more or less the same form of exchange…

I am still in close touch with several dozen young women from my old college…In the best traditions of popular journalism, I carried out a quick straw poll which revealed that the furthest any of these girls had been prepared to go was to stoop to silver service waitressing at the local stately home.  Curiously, though, almost all of them had certainly heard of, or even knew of one or even a couple of fellow students who had indeed, worked as an escort, or funded their studies with the occasional pole dance.  So nobody owned up to turning to sex work themselves, yet the anecdotal evidence that some students definitely do turns out to be overwhelming.  Funny that, isn’t it?

Funny indeed, Dominique; like you, I suspect that many of these ladies took advantage of their natural assets, but simply won’t admit it.

Toys for Tots (November 25th, 2011)

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve donated to Toys for Tots every year since I started sex work in 1997, and I’m not remotely alone; last year I mentioned that a friend of mine was offering extra time in exchange for donated toys.  But when the sick, evil minds of cops (and some suburban housewives) see a charity offer like this, they imagine it as the sort of twisted scheme they would come up with to victimize someone, and the piggish, juvenile minds of yellow journalists see only a way to get a story literally at the expense of women and children:

A toy drive during the holidays — but this one unlike any we’ve ever seen before.  An ad posted on an adult escort website promises more time with the woman in exchange for donations to Toys for Tots…The person who answered the phone told me that she was, in fact, Robin Jordan — the woman who was arrested earlier this year and convicted last month for operating an Internet-based prostitution operation out of her Fort Bend County home…The site, which shows an undressed woman in provocative poses, wishes you “Happy Holidays” and claims if you pay for one hour of services and bring an unwrapped gift, your second hour will be free.  “It’s awful, obviously, especially in a neighborhood like this,” said neighbor Jennifer Vontz…”For them to use that just to lure people in, I think that’s just really sad,” said neighbor Valerie Work…

Jordan would not confirm she placed the ads, but by phone earlier told me she would meet for us to hear her side of the story.  Jordan never returned calls when we repeatedly tried to contact her this afternoon, nor did anyone wish to comment at her…home.  The Houston Police Department has launched an additional investigation, based on the evidence we have submitted to them.  We’ve learned Jordan faces a charge of child endangerment in Fort Bend County.  Child Protective Services is also attempting to terminate her parental rights based on this case and the way she allegedly treated her three-year-old daughter.

The fact that it’s “unlike anything he’s seen before” demonstrates the reporter’s colossal ignorance.  My opinion of “child protective services” is well known, and as for the Houston police…I wouldn’t waste my water spitting on them.  The TV station, neighbors and cops involved in this story are all beneath contempt.

Not To Be Taken Internally (December 11th, 2011)

Feminists who believe that only women have unrealistic body-image issues, please take note of this item from the December 13th Huffington Post:

Authorities say a New Jersey man who died after having his penis injected with silicone was trying to get it enlarged…The Essex County prosecutor’s office says 34-year-old Kasia Rivera gave 22-year-old Justin Street the injection in May.  She has pleaded not guilty [to manslaughter] but remains in jail on $75,000 bail…[after] a medical examiner [determined that Street] died of a silicone embolism.  Rivera also faces charges [for] the unauthorized practice of medicine out of her…apartment.  Authorities say they’re investigating whether she gave other people similar injections.

The Liars’ Club (December 13th, 2011)

Maybe the adult film industry won’t have to fight Michael Weinstein’s asinine “your sex life is our business” ballot initiative after all, because according to this December 9th press release from the Free Speech Coalition, the City of Los Angeles is doing it for them:

A lawsuit was filed yesterday by the City of Los Angeles challenging the constitutionality of AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s (AHF) ballot initiative…[which] would force local officials to enforce mandatory condom regulations on adult production sets.  Named as defendants in the suit are various AHF personnel, including AHF President Michael Weinstein.  “Clearly AHF has chosen to squander its donors’ resources by filing frivolous lawsuits and ballot initiatives instead of providing valuable resources toward the prevention and treatment of HIV,” FSC Executive Director Diane Duke said.  “It is heartening to know that the City of Los Angeles will draw the line on AHF’s political grandstanding when it comes to wasting taxpayer dollars.  History has shown us that regulating sexual behavior between consenting adults does not work.  The best way to prevent the transmission of HIV and other STIs is by providing quality information and sexual health service, all of which are successfully provided through adult industry protocols and best practices,” Duke added.

The city’s complaint argues that the ballot proposal is preempted by state regulations that require barrier protection on adult sets and that enforcement of those regulations falls under state jurisdiction.  There have been two previous rulings in complaints filed by AHF, where the judge decided that L.A. County officials are not compelled to enforce regulations on behalf of state health & safety agency Cal/OSHA.  The city also states that the process involved in bringing the ballot measure to the voters would be a “waste” of taxpayer money…[and] that the ballot initiative is potentially unconstitutional; if passed by voters in June, the city raised concerns of more money being spent if the initiative was overturned on constitutional grounds…

I suspect that somebody in LA government woke up and realized how much money the city stands to lose if the adult film industry moves its shoots elsewhere.

One Year Ago Today

“Doublethink” explains the concept from George Orwell’s 1984 and provides real-life examples.

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Updates Galore (Part One)

Posted in Current Events, Miscellaneous, News, Perception, Philosophy, The Dark Side, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 9, 2011| 38 Comments »

A man’s jealousy is a social institution; a woman’s prostitution is an instinct.  –  Karl Kraus

What is it about the end of the year and prostitution-related news?  Last year saw an explosion of such stories after mid-November, so that I ended up doing a number of miscellanea columns between then and Christmas; one year ago today “Bits and Pieces (Part One)” appeared, featuring Derrick Burts’ self-outing, a Melissa Petro follow-up, the duplicitous Annie Lobert of “Hookers for Jesus” and an astonishingly ignorant “child sex trafficking” story from NPR.  Well, this year was much the same; I had so many short articles I had to spread them across six different columns!  Don’t worry, I won’t throw them at you all in a row; we’ll start with a two-part update column and a miscellanea column on Sunday, then save the others for the end of next week.

Think of the Children! (September 30th, 2010)

The list of teachers “outed” as porn actors continues to grow; first Tera Myers, then Benedict Garrett, and now Kevin Hogan of Malden, Massachusetts, whose stage name was “Hytch Cawke”.  But if reporter Mike Beaudet of WFXT in Boston imagined he would be hailed as a hero for exposing the dirty porn-making fag lurking in our schools to corrupt innocent children, I’m sure he was unpleasantly surprised.  Oh, he was easily able to find the usual assortment of sheeple to bleat out quotes like “I’m disturbed. I’m surprised…This is scary” and “he’s teaching our children.  Everyday.  It does bother me a lot.”  But take a look at the comments on the story, which are not only overwhelmingly defensive of a person’s right to do (legal) sex work, but also overwhelmingly condemnatory of the TV station and reporter.  Beaudet actually went on the air the next day to defend his actions, probably because there’s a “Support Kevin Hogan, FIRE Mike Beaudet” Facebook page and a Fire Mike Beaudet petition at Change​.org.  I don’t believe for one second that the furor would be this strong if the teacher were a heterosexual woman, or if Hogan had been a gay prostitute rather than a gay porn actor, but any vociferous public support for any flavor of “sex work is work” is a huge step in the right direction.

An Older Profession Than You May Have Thought (October 12th, 2010)

In this post I explained that in some species of cricket, males give females large bags of low-quality food as their payment for sex; I compared them to human clients who pad their pay envelopes with low-denomination bills hidden among the large ones.  Well, this November 13th article from Physorg.com introduces us to the arthropod equivalent of clients who try to cheat hookers with envelopes full of worthless paper strips:

Male nursery web spiders (Pisaura mirabilis) prepare silk-wrapped gifts to give to potential mates.  Most gifts contain insects, but some gifts are inedible plant seeds or empty exoskeletons left after the prey has already been eaten…New research…examines the reproductive success of deceitful males and shows that females are not impressed by worthless gifts.  [In the experiment] male spiders were provided with either a potential gift of a fly, or a worthless item, such as a cotton wool ball, a dry flower head, a prey leftover (previously eaten housefly), or no gift at all.  All the gifts were approximately the same size, so the females would not be able to tell what the gift was without unwrapping it.  Males that offered any gift were more likely to successfully mate than males without.  However the length of time the females allowed males with worthless gifts to spend transferring sperm was shorter than those with edible gifts (and even shorter for those with no gift at all!)  It appears that both male and female spiders are apparently able to assess the value of the gift and modify their behavior accordingly…Maria Albo who led the research explained, “The evolution of male deceit involves a complex equation of costs and benefits.  It costs the males to find and wrap a gift, but these costs can be reduced if the male does not have to first catch his gift, or gives one that has already been eaten.  The benefit of the gift is longer mating, which leads to more sperm being transferred, and potentially a higher number of offspring.  However, the females are wise to deception and terminate mating early for worthless gifts”…

Keep this in mind next time some neofeminist tries to tell you that gender-based human sexual behavior is “socially constructed”.

No Other Option (October 17th, 2010)

Most severely-disabled men and many whose handicap is less severe are completely unable to acquire sex by noncommercial means, so prostitutes are their only recourse.  Neofeminist fanatics declare that sex is not a “need” and that such a transaction still constitutes “male oppression”, but sane, moral, decent people know better and fortunately many whores are happy to help these men experience sex.  A newly-released documentary named Scarlet Road follows an Australian professional who specializes in helping disabled clients:

Australian sex worker Rachel Wotton works with many clients who have disabilities.  Her work has become the subject of the latest documentary from award-winning director Catherine Scott and producer Pat Fiske.  Filmed over a three-year period, Scarlet Road follows Rachel in her relationship with John, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 26 years ago, and Mark, a client with cerebral palsy.  It reveals the therapeutic aspects of human touch and sexual intimacy.  This unique documentary gives voice to two men generously sharing moments of sexual self-discovery.  “People with disability are not seen as sexual beings and on the other hand sex workers are often portrayed as oversexed, victims or damaged goods.  I really wanted to tackle these stereotypes head on”…Scarlet Road shows Rachel in her daily life and follows her on a journey to the UK, Denmark and Sweden, where she meets with sex workers, people with disabilities and their families, as well as making quite an impression as a speaker at the World Congress for Sexual Health.

Aphrodite bless Rachel and her work; I’ve added a link to her charity, Touching Base, to my “Resources” box at the right.

Interview:  Jill Brenneman (starting February 21st, 2011)

On December 2nd our friend Jill spoke at the Sex Worker Summit in Asheville, North Carolina hosted by the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition and several other organizations (including New Orleans’ own Women With a Vision).  Local newspaper Mountain Xpress covered the event and according to Jill even got it mostly right.  I don’t have a lot of hope for North Carolina becoming a center for sex worker rights in the U.S., but I’d love to be proven wrong!

Validation (May 25th, 2011)

“Even when one already knows something, it’s good to get validation from others.  And when one is beset by enemies on all sides, particularly ruthless enemies who are willing not only to lie but to distort or completely fabricate bogus “research” to support their lies, every extra bit of academic research which soundly supports one’s position is another arrow in one’s quiver.”  So I was quite pleased to see this November 11th article on the Migrants’ Rights Network; we’ve seen this study before in my November 15th column, but this article mentions a different aspect:

A new study on migration and trafficking in the UK sex industry has challenged the idea that trafficking is the main factor in trapping people in exploitative and abusive employment.  Based on a survey of 100 people of migrant background involved in the industry, [Dr Nick Mai of the Institute for the Study of European Transformations (ISET)] has found that a majority of them had not been forced or trafficked into the profession…[and that] difficulties in exercising rights…were more likely to come from the issue of official immigration status than from forced labour.  Many of the workers had entered the industry because the alternative employment available to them was likely to be more exploitative and unrewarding than sex work.  They also felt that the stigmatisation of the profession had a negative impact on their personal lives…[and that] criminalisation of clients…[would] not reduce demand or exploitation but [would] mean more insecurity for migrants working in the industry.  The report argues that better strategies to combat negative aspects of the industry would…[include allowing] migrants to become and remain legally documented…[allowing] the industry [to] operate legally…[and providing] victims of trafficking the right to remain in the country and the long-term support needed for integration.

This information needs to be pounded directly into the skull of every career politician and cop in the United Kingdom, United States and every other country which uses “human trafficking” as an excuse to persecute whores and/or our clients and partners.

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Traumatic Effects

Posted in Perception, Philosophy, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 8, 2011| 20 Comments »

I often receive emails from readers asking for answers or advice, and I try to answer every one of them as thoroughly and promptly as possible.  Many of them have found their way into Q & A columns, and some have inspired full columns on their own; this particular example was, I think, interesting enough to deserve such a treatment.  I’ve condensed the reader’s letter and removed some facts in order to protect his privacy, but my response is essentially the same as the one I sent him personally.

Hi Maggie, I wandered into your blog because I was researching if being a working girl has a negative effect in your psychological make-up.  I have read in multiple articles that it gives you post-traumatic stress syndrome.  Here’s my situation:  I am a young guy who lives in a particularly conservative country and I don’t have much experience with women; in fact I’ve only ever had sex with working girls.  Recently, I met a very pretty 19 year-old girl and after our “date” I spent more time with her just drinking, so I got to learn a little more about her.  She shared some intimate details of her life with me, and it seems that prostitution was not a desperate or coerced decision for her; she enjoys the economic freedom of being able to buy anything she wants.  The next time I saw her she seemed more vulnerable; she drank more, revealed her real name and told me that one of the reasons she got into prostitution was looking for love and attention that she never got from her parents.  She kept saying that if her father ever accepted her back that she would leave this lifestyle, but didn’t say the reason for the rift.  I think she has a lot of “whore guilt” and is trying to drink it away.  So I have four questions:

1)  How do I convince her to walk away from this life?  I believe it really does have a traumatic effect on 99% of the women who engage in it.  It is like forcibly going against your programming which would definitely cause some undesirable effect with your psychology, especially at such a young age.

2)  Should I even try to convince her?  After engaging in this type of work for a significant amount of time, would she be able to walk away from it, knowing that it would lead to a more difficult life?

3)  If I shouldn’t convince her, what can I do to help her protect her psyche?

4)  Should I just walk away?  Is my line of thinking just too naïve?  Am I sticking my nose into something I shouldn’t?  Is it possible that she is just playing me?  I want to help her but I am afraid that maybe I can’t.

The idea that prostitution causes PTSD was developed by anti-prostitute neofeminists like Melissa Farley and has absolutely no basis in reality; in fact Farley’s claim to be able to diagnose PTSD via questionaire is one of many gross ethical violations named in a recent complaint to the APA filed by a psychologist in New Zealand, which petitions for her membership to be revoked for her dishonest, unprofessional and bigoted behavior.

Prostitution is a job like any other; some women love it, some only like it, some merely tolerate it and others dislike or even hate it…but the same could be said of teaching, housewifery, nursing, office work or anything else.  But even in the cases where a whore hates what she’s doing, it isn’t the fault of the work but rather the fact that she is not suited to it.  Women with strong guilt complexes over sex, those with weak personalities, those who have low emotional barriers or those who have listened to far too much anti-whore propaganda should not be doing this kind of work, because they aren’t right for it and it isn’t right for them.  In fact, a lot of the “horror stories” you read are spread by women who should never have entered hooking but did (for whatever reason) and had a bad experience which they then exaggerated in their minds as people are wont to do.

With all that in mind, let’s look at your questions:

1)  Prostitution is not “going against programming” for any woman; it’s the most natural thing in the world.  Take a look at my column “How Old is Oldest?” and make sure you read the links as well.  While as I said above, formal prostitution is wrong for some women, it’s not because of biological programming but rather cultural programming (or just personality type).  It’s definitely not bad for most women who choose it freely; as explained in my column “Out of Context”:

A 2005 study…[reported] that 97% of California escorts surveyed reported an increase in self-esteem after they entered harlotry, compared with 50% of Nevada brothel workers and 8% of streetwalkers (Prince, 1986: 454).  That study (page 497) also reported that the escorts saw their work positively, while the brothel girls were merely satisfied and streetwalkers were largely dissatisfied.  Another study of low-end escorts in the U.S. found that 75% of them felt that their lives had improved since becoming escorts, 25% reported no change and 0% said their lives were worse.  (Decker, 1979: 166, 174).  A Dutch study (Dalder, 2004: 34) gave the same results, and all of the escorts studied by Foltz (1979: 128) took pride in their work and viewed themselves as more sensible than amateurs; “they consider women who are not ‘in the life’ to be throwing away woman’s major source of power and control [sexual capital], while they as prostitutes are using it to their own advantage as well as for the benefit of society.”  And an Australian study found that half of all prostitutes surveyed ranked their work as a “major source of satisfaction” in their lives, and 70% said they would definitely choose prostitution again if they had their lives to live over (Woodward et al., 2004: 39)…[another study]…reports that 72% of escorts feel their self-esteem is higher because of their work…

2)  You most definitely should NOT try to convince her of anything.  Suggesting that a sex worker needs to be rescued is highly presumptuous, because it is based on the premise that she is incompetent to make decisions for herself or to take care of herself.  As I explained in “The Rescuers”, lots of people want to “rescue” us, and most working girls are mightily sick of it; even when the intentions of the would-be “saviors” are sincere, they never have any actual, feasible plan for supporting these “poor victims” after they’re “rescued” in anything like the style the girls can support themselves.  And when the “rescuers” abduct women by force in the name of “saving” them from their own choices, the results are highly predictable.  Since you recognize that quitting prostitution would make your lady friend’s life more difficult, why on Earth would you want her to do it?

3)  You can’t do that, either, except by offering her a sympathetic ear if she wants it.  Based on what you’ve told me it seems that her emotional problems have nothing to do with prostitution, but rather a poor family life (and obvious Daddy issues).  In other words, she’d probably be drinking, looking for male attention via promiscuity and burdening herself with guilt no matter which job she did…only she’d be making a great deal less money.  Surely you don’t want to add poverty to her other problems?

4)  Your thinking is indeed very naïve, but you are the only person who can decide whether you should walk away.  All relationships involve risk; allowing oneself to care for someone else exposes one to emotional injury, but that doesn’t mean one should avoid opening up to others.  There’s nothing wrong with a client becoming friendly with a whore, though I would advise caution in allowing his feelings to go beyond friendship unless he is an excellent judge of character and honestly comes to believe he might have a chance with her.  As my marriage proves, it’s possible for a client/hooker relationship to develop into a truly intimate one, but that is rare and takes two mature, well-balanced individuals.  If you feel a genuine sense of friendship for this lady as a person and not merely a fascination with her as a prop for a white-knight fantasy, you might be able to help her work through some of her issues by listening, caring and supporting whatever decision she makes even if you don’t like it.  But yes, it’s also possible that she’s playing you to keep you coming back, and even more likely that there’s nothing you can do for her; in either case you may get hurt, perhaps seriously.

One Year Ago Today

“Not So Different” reports a case of a rapist using a sugar daddy website to lure a victim, and the interesting way in which the story was covered in the media.

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